


An Angel Every Day of Your Life

by asktheravens



Category: Marvel, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Drug Use, M/M, bottom!Thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:46:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asktheravens/pseuds/asktheravens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki's decision to take a chance on a paid companion who seems too good to be true comes with unintended consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. August 28, Miami

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hanna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hanna/gifts).



> This is for Hanna, who wanted an AU where Thor is a prostitute. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Thanks also to the amazing and wonderful onemuseleft, the sort of true friend who will read a kink she doesn't like for a pairing she doesn't ship just to tell me it's worth it to keep going. I don't even deserve you.

Loki thrust deeply into a perfectly toned and lubricated olive-skinned ass and checked his watch. The young man faking it enthusiastically beneath him (though Loki flattered himself it wasn’t entirely feigned in his case) cost as much as a reliable used car for a few hours of companionship, but Loki was bored and impatient with his perfection. He’d forgotten the false name the man had supplied when he arrived, but he remembered his dark doe eyes and the contrast of his white-blonde hair against his tanned skin, the exotic trace of his accent in his impeccable English as he asked what Loki wanted. Loki concentrated on the positive, trying to find a good rhythm, to get himself there, but he was still filled with the nagging sense that there was something better he could be doing.

His phone started vibrating on the nightstand and he snapped it up and frowned with irritation. His father checking up on him. Calling to remind him that he had an early flight, back to Boston and graduate school and the mantle of responsibilities that came with Tesseract Technologies. Loki let it ring even though it would cost him later. Laufey did not like being anyone’s second priority.

Thinking about the end of his vacation gave him the surge of anger he needed to finish, driving harder into his escort until the man cried out in both pain and pleasure. Loki came in him, red flashing before his eyes, just as his phone began to vibrate again. He withdrew as soon as his vision went back to normal, peeling off the soiled condom and tossing it aside for the cleaning staff as his partner panted, still hard, and did not meet his eyes.

“We could try again. I know another way…” he gasped, flushed prettily and looked up at Loki through long, lush eyelashes.

“Get out,” Loki told him. He pressed a fifty dollar tip into his hand. “Lose my number.” Like any good high class prostitute, he did not argue and hurried to comply with what Loki wanted, dressing with professional haste and letting himself out with a quiet click of the hotel room door. Loki sat back on the rumpled bed and opened his missed calls. Laufey had not left him a voicemail. Ominous. The most recent call, however, was not his father calling back but Mauricio, his coke dealer and native guide to Miami. Loki returned the call.

“I told you not to call this number,” he said.

“Hello to you too. You said not to call you unless I had something interesting for you, and my pale friend, you do not want to miss this.” Loki looked around at his posh but impersonal room, his half-packed suitcase, the humming air conditioner, and thought, why the fuck not? He wasn’t eager to spend the rest of his last night in Florida in here.

“It had better be good,” he threatened without heat.

“Meet me the usual place. Bring money.” The call disconnected and Loki retrieved a clean pair of black jeans and a linen shirt the tropical green of palm trees. He’d had a generous allowance for this trip, his father’s bonus for his grades and behavior over the school year, but he was down to his last thousand. Still, if that wasn’t enough for whatever debauchery Mauricio had uncovered, he could still afford a tremendous last hurrah of coke for tonight. He thought about taking some back, as Boston had nothing like Miami for the price and quality, but he didn’t think it wise to try to get it on the plane. He was already irritating his father; no need to add hushing up a drug arrest to his list of grievances.

His driver cut the dark Bentley through the humid night. Loki closed the air vents and lowered the window, enjoying the warm, damp, wind with its pervasive scent of the sea one last time even though he could feel sweat beading on his upper lip. He watched the city go by without the tint of the window to interfere, the crowds like bright tropical fish in an invisible current, flowing in and out of a coral reef of bars and clubs and late-night takeouts. Like any ecosystem, he could see the predators lurking in the shadowed places or even in the middle of all the pretty, simple fish.

They pulled to a stop at the mouth of an alley behind the Pink Diamond Gentleman’s Club and Loki let himself out. Mauricio was waiting, grinning at the scent of easy money swirling like blood in the water.

“Wasn’t sure you’d be around,” he said in his rapid, liquid Spanish, but Loki didn’t believe it.

“You caught me at a good time. Just don’t waste it.” Loki’s grasp was less fluent, more textbook than street correct, but it pleased him to know he could communicate in the favored language.

“Something special. As soon as I acquired it I knew you would want first pass. This pretty man comes to me, and he wants the good stuff,” here Mauricio snorted the air with a chuckle, “But he says he can’t pay, offers to work it off. I’m strictly into pussy myself, but I thought of you.”

“No wonder you don’t pimp much. What do I want with some fucked out addict?” Loki’s thought suddenly of Borson, his graduate advisor, with the photos of his horsey wife and their doughy daughter on his desk next to a black book full of mistresses, and the light that came to his dead shark eyes when he got the opportunity to bust Loki’s balls over something. He thought of that petty fucker on his knees in front of him desperate for a fix, willing to do anything to get it, and his cock stirred against his will.

“I think you need to see to appreciate what I’m offering you,” Mauricio beckoned him further into the alley. Loki remained skeptical, but he’d already come out here so he might as well see why this particular coke whore was supposed to be so special. Mauricio snapped his fingers and a man came out from behind a dumpster, stepping into the flashing pink light from the club’s neon sign.

He was gorgeous and looked like he’d been dressed hastily out of someone else’s closet. A black mesh shirt strained across his broad chest and shoulders and tight dark jeans left little to the imagination below the waist. He had long blonde hair and a neatly trimmed short beard that framed his strong jaw, but his blue eyes were softer, vulnerable even. A leather collar fastened tight around his throat with a small padlock. He could easily have been a model or a movie star, so why the hell was he selling it for drugs in a sleazy alley? 

“You like him?” Mauricio asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

“Does he understand Spanish?”

“Not a word,” the dealer grinned.

“How much is he in for?”

“Eleven hundred. But he worked some of it off already.” He accompanied this by miming a blowjob, and the big man caught that at least. Anger and shame flashed over his face before he settled his gaze on his feet.

“You want me to believe that you let a stranger have eleven hundred dollars worth on credit?” Loki was looking for the razor in this apple, because there was no way he was this lucky.

“His first time,” Mauricio leered at him and patted the glorious, muscular ass. “He’s clean. Yours for a thousand, and worth three times that.”

“Show me your arms,” he said in English. The man looked up, startled, and Loki noticed a dribble of dried semen in his beard. He complied with Loki’s request, holding out his forearms for examination. Loki wished the light were better but his arms were unmarked, no bruising or scarring from needles, and his nails were even well kept.

“Eight hundred, and that’s being generous.”

“He is a bargain at a thousand!”

“Exactly. I don’t know why you aren’t taking the time to find a proper buyer, but if you are so eager to sell there must be something wrong with him. Pity they don’t come with a use-by date stamped on them.”

“Nine hundred, then.”

“Nine hundred and you switch his stash for the good stuff, not that drain cleaner shit you fob off on tourists. Take it or I’m walking.” Loki wasn’t watching Mauricio. He preferred to watch his bargain’s face instead. He looked nervous, but maybe eager as well. Loki took the cash out and held it, inviting Mauricio to take it or leave it. He took it and counted it quickly, and in exchange he handed Loki the key to the padlock and a small bag with a neatly packed eight ball of white powder.

“I told him you’d take it off when you’d gotten your money’s worth,” he grinned. “Have a good night.” He shoved Loki’s purchase in his direction and the man staggered off balance.

“Come on then,” Loki turned and gestured impatiently for him to follow as he tucked the coke away. “I have plans for you,” he lied with a smirk over his shoulder. He didn’t really know what he would do, only that he wanted him.

They reached his car, the hooker trailing behind him, but he got in next to Loki readily enough. Loki abhorred making small talk with the whores he picked up, but this one didn’t even try. He stared out the window, though not like he cared where they were going or how he would get back, and Loki stared at his sculpted thighs straining against the denim. He traced them up to the bulge at the crotch, outline vague in the intermittent light from the street, contemplating, slowly moistening his lips with the tip of his tongue, until he realized that the man’s eyes were now on him, sizing him up as well. Loki looked up to his face, feeling like he’d been caught doing something wrong, but that was absurd. This man was his, bought and paid for, and all that kept him from tearing into him right now was his feeling that grinding on a stranger in the back of a car lacked dignity. He asserted his ownership, running a hand up his left thigh and enjoying the heat of it.

“What’s your name?” he asked. For some reason, he thought he might remember this one’s name. The man hesitated, and Loki waited to hear what false nickname he’d be attaching to him.

“Thor,” he said, and looked away so quickly that Loki knew it was the truth.

“I’m Loki. You might need to remember that later.” Loki finished his caress just shy of touching Thor’s crotch and was gratified to see him lean into his hand like he wanted it to continue.

 

He took Thor back to his hotel room, flaunting him in front of the sour-faced night clerk. He keyed them in and turned on the light. The bed had been remade and turned down for him, a little green-foiled mint placed on the pillow like a jewel. Thor looked awkward standing there, like he was taking a test he hadn’t studied for. Loki found he appreciated the honesty of paid companionship without the theatre of eagerness he was used to. He ran his hand over Thor’s abdomen lightly, just a test to see what would happen, and felt the muscles tense under his fingers. Loki watched his face and saw the ghost of a flinch flit across his eyes, pink rising to his cheeks, but his powerful body leaned into Loki’s touch, not away.

“What’s your story, Thor?” Loki asked. “You don’t look like an addict. There are easier ways for a good looking guy like you to score some blow. And no pimp would be crazy enough to have someone as big as you around unless they had something pretty solid over you.” He continued to touch him as he spoke, loving the feel of Thor’s powerful body under his hands and the way it seemed to crave him in a way Thor found distasteful. Their faces were only a few inches apart now, Loki refusing to release Thor from the intense scrutiny of his gaze, looking for any clue to unraveling the enigma he presented. Thor didn’t answer, but he leaned closer to kiss him. Loki had his hand away from Thor’s abs and between their mouths so quickly it was almost a slap in the face.

“No. None of that yet. Shower first.” He crossed the room and grabbed his own toiletry case from his bag. “And use my soap and shampoo. You were expensive and I don’t want to have you smelling like you came with the room.” Thor looked at the bottles Loki handed him without curiosity, as if hundred dollar haircare products were no new experience for him. He took them into the spacious but impersonal bathroom and Loki soon heard the water start. He got undressed and packed his clothes away, enjoying the shivery feeling of the air conditioned draft on his bare skin for a moment before slipping on one of the room’s soft, paper-light cotton robes. He was already half hard in anticipation when he took the toiletry case and followed Thor into the bathroom.

A puff of steam and the sharp herb and mint scent of his conditioner greeted him. He opened the shower curtain, heedless of the water spraying on the floor, and took in the sight of Thor naked and drenched. He had his eyes closed, scrubbing the conditioner out of his hair under the stream, but the close-lipped grin on his face made Loki suspect that he knew he was being observed and enjoyed being on display. Steaming water ran down the smooth skin of his broad chest and tight abs to the soft thicket of dark golden curls between his muscular thighs, one of which was bent enough to coyly hide his cock from Loki’s view. He had his arms up in his hair, biceps flexed more than strictly necessary for the task, and he turned away a little so Loki could appreciate the line of his back and the sculpted curve of his ass. He worked out, obviously, but he had a trim competence to him that told Loki this was more than just a gym rat’s vanity muscle. Loki wanted to know what it was like to master that much strength, to see the arrogance fucked off that beautiful face. He wanted this perfect specimen more than he’d ever wanted anything else.

He reached in and grabbed Thor’s head, shoving his fingers into his sopping hair and dragging his face around. He kissed him, so hard and sudden that their teeth clicked together, because he couldn’t stand to wait another moment to know what Thor tasted like. He was disappointed to find his mouth tasted like the toothpaste the hotel left on the sink next to a toothbrush wrapped in plastic, though he hadn’t wanted to taste other men on him either. His short beard was rough against Loki’s skin. As with everything lately, it seemed this was destined to let him down, to bore him when it had hardly begun, and the water was so hot it was burning him. He pulled back as quickly as he’d gone in and Thor looked at him with confusion from the shower’s stream. Loki supposed he must seem odd, turning from desire to disgust so quickly. A rush of anger seared through him and he was illogically enraged by this beautiful enigma, but maybe more by his own perpetual dissatisfaction.

“That’s enough. Get out here.” Thor turned off the shower and stepped out on the mat, reaching languidly for a towel so Loki could enjoy his first uninterrupted look at him naked. Loki would have to admit he was impressed; Thor was well-formed, thick and tantalizing. Something of that must have shown on his face, because that smirk was back on Thor’s lips. He slung the towel around his hips and turned to find Loki grinning most unpleasantly at him, holding a pearl-handled straight razor with the initials LL inlaid in platinum. For the first time Loki saw fear in his eyes and it sent a jolt of pleasure through him. He let Thor linger for a moment that stretched, let him savor being naked in a bathroom with a knife-holding stranger between him and the door. Then he snapped the razor shut and held the handle out to him. “I hate that thing on your face,” he told him, the grin getting even nastier. “Shave it for me.”

“What?” Thor reacted to the words like a slap.

“Shave.”

“I don’t…you can’t…”

“I can’t? Did I not pay a fair price for you?” At last he saw defiance in Thor, something he would push back on, and Loki wanted to make Thor pay for how much he wanted him.

“Everyone would see…”

“I don’t care about your whore friends. I own you right now, and I say it goes. Keep defying me, you worthless slut, and I’ll shave you myself.” Thor’s face went red and he swallowed, but he took the razor gingerly from Loki and soaped his neat beard in the foggy mirror. Loki enjoyed watching him, the razor bright against his throat and a faint rasping as he scraped the hair off his face. His humiliation made Loki hard, and although Thor tried to hide it from his view he could see the front of his towel was tented with arousal.

He made a quick job of it, hardly able to look at himself in the foggy mirror, but his hands were steady and Loki didn’t get the satisfaction of seeing him cut himself. He rinsed the leftover cream off his naked face and glared wordlessly at Loki. Loki appreciated the show of anger, but Thor looked much younger without his facial hair, chastened and diminished, and no matter his size and strength Loki no longer had any doubt he could control him. He took a step closer to Thor and stroked the soft, pale skin.

“Much better,” he said. He trailed his hand down over Thor’s jaw to his neck and worked two fingers under the sodden black leather of the collar. He had no doubt it hurt; the collar was still tight, even stretched out in the hot water. He tugged Thor into another kiss, knuckles digging in to the soft hollow of his throat, and Thor fought him for only a second, stiff necked, before he gave in. Loki worked his tongue experimentally into Thor’s mouth and his other hand under the towel at Thor’s waist. It came free, falling softly to the floor, and Loki grabbed the hard plane of Thor’s hip. Thor didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, allowing Loki to kiss him but otherwise holding back, until Loki slid his hand over Thor’s hot skin to the curve of his ass, cupping it and steering him closer, so only the damp translucent fabric of his robe separated them. The contact spurred Thor to action, and his arms went around Loki, his kiss intensifying. He pushed Loki back against the wall, kissing down his neck to suck the pale skin of his collar bone. Loki gasped with pleasure even as he sucked hard enough to sting. He jerked down hard on Thor’s collar.

“No marks,” he hissed as he raked his nails over Thor’s lower back. Loki relished how unfair that was. Always take more than they want to give, his father had taught him. Thor’s mouth returned to his, the chemical mint taste fading from his tongue as he worked it over Loki’s lips. His hands clenched in the thin robe and began pulling it down, roughly baring Loki’s shoulders and threatening to bind his arms in the sleeves. Loki growled with frustration and broke his grasp, shucking the robe and discarding it in a wet rumpled heap. He chose not to get his grip back on the collar and instead knotted his fingers in Thor’s hair, enjoying the feeling of water squeezing out and the way Thor’s eyes watered as he pulled. Thor’s hands were everywhere, caressing his belly, the small of his back, brushing over his nipples, and he arched against Loki. He cupped Loki’s ass and lifted him up easily. Loki wrapped his long white legs around Thor’s slender waist and let Thor’s hair take the weight of his upper body, never letting their kiss break.

Thor carried him through the door and into the room. He set Loki on the foot of the bed and pushed him back into the center, sliding between his legs until he was braced above him on his arms. Loki leaned up into him, releasing his hair so he could enjoy the bunch and ripple of Thor’s muscles under his hands as they kissed. This was more like it. He got his fingers back in Thor’s collar, guiding his mouth where he wanted it, letting him suck and bite at his earlobe and down the line of his jaw. Thor stayed braced on one arm and slid the other under Loki’s back, lifting his hips up until Loki was straddling him from the front. Loki felt Thor’s fingers working their way into him, teasing him open, and he was tempted to let him continue.

Instead he gave Thor’s collar a savage twist, the tips of his fingers going bloodless white against the black leather, pulling him down on top of him on the mattress. Thor struggled to get his arms back under him, to get some leverage, but Loki had him trapped, Thor’s ear next to his mouth.

“Did he let you believe you were topping me?” Loki said. “No one tops me.” That was a lie, actually. It might have been pleasant, but he could tell with Thor you had to set the right dynamic from the start or he would never learn his place. Thor lay still but tense against him, not fighting but waiting. “Now I’m going to let you up and we’re going to switch places. Get on your knees.” He let up the pressure on Thor’s neck and he pushed himself off of Loki, but Loki kept his hold on the collar until the last minute. It seemed every time Thor almost got comfortable, Loki knocked him out of step again; he looked lost as he rolled off Loki and positioned himself on all fours on the bed.

“Don’t look so grim,” Loki said, snatching a condom from the nightstand with irritation. He thought Thor had been about to go ahead without one, which crossed the line between self-destructive and suicidal in Loki’s mind. “I assure you it’s not so bad.” Not that he cared about Thor’s pleasure or lack thereof, he told himself, but for all his faults he still liked his partners at least nominally willing.

“I’ve never…” Thor shut his eyes, struggling for words.

“What, never?” Loki couldn’t believe what had landed in his lap tonight.

“Never been with a man. Before now.”

“I assure you I know what I’m doing. Just relax.” Loki finished putting on the the condom and ran lube up his shaft with smooth, practiced ease. He leaned over Thor, parting his hair and taking a lighter grip on the back of the collar with one hand while he stroked Thor’s broad back with the other, up and down his spine and over his ass. He eased himself into Thor, not pushing yet, just letting him get used to the sensation for a moment, and moved his roaming hand to Thor’s cock, swollen and leaking with arousal.

“You like that?” he asked, taking Thor’s cock between his circled finger and thumb and stroking languidly. Thor had his eyes shut but he nodded frantically, his breath harsh and quick. Loki stopped and thrust fully into Thor. His grip on the collar kept Thor from falling forward or pulling away but he gasped in pain and surprise. Loki pulled back and thrust again, more shallowly this time, and set up a slow but quickening rhthym. Thor squirmed against the leather. His breath sounded half strangled but Loki kept his grip like iron.

“Tight,” he told Thor, like he was reviewing the taste of wine. “You really are a virgin. I think you love it, though, don’t you?” Thor said nothing, only made a whimpering moan in the back of his throat. Loki applied pressure to his neck, forcing him down to the bed. He doubted he could have truly wrestled him down with brute force, but Thor gave up with only a token struggle. “I didn’t catch that,” Loki said. He pressed Thor’s face against the sheets and thrust harder. This was it, this was exactly what he’d been wanting since his plane touched down in Miami. Longer than that, even.

“Yes,” Thor gasped out in between thrusts.

“Yes what?” Loki pinned him even harder, Thor’s back arching perfectly to take him deeper.

“I…love…this…” Loki had planned to take his time; he’d had plenty of sex in the past weeks, even earlier tonight, and he prided himself on his iron self control, but he had never had anything like Thor. Dominating him was like lightning, like waiting for the thunder to crash after the white hot flash on the horizon. Thor wasn’t struggling to pull away any longer. Loki rewarded him with a few more strokes of his cock, loving the shameless, breathless sounds Thor made as he broke him down.

“Is it about the money for you, Thor? Or the drugs?” Loki’s voice had a ragged edge and he could hear his control slipping, just as he could feel it in the rest of his body, but he wanted one last thing that Thor had kept back. He wanted the truth. “Or maybe you just wanted this?” he asked, twisting the leather collar as tight as it would go as punctuation, Thor’s panting stopped in a strangled choke. “Is that it?” He relaxed the strap just enough that Thor could breathe again.

“Please…I can’t…do this…”

“I will be most displeased if you finish before me. I won’t stop, and if you find it hurts now it will be much worse after.” Loki did not let up, however. “Would you like to feel me come in you?” Thor nodded eagerly, as much as Loki’s pressure would allow. “Then tell me.”

“I wanted this…I wanted you.”

“So you’re just a slut for it then? You wanted to take anyone who would have you? Wanted to know what you were worth?”

“Yes!” Thor moaned, bucking into Loki’s hips, dragging his cheek across the sheet. Spots of red swam across Loki’s vision, his thrusts punishing and without letup.

“Ask me for it, then.” Loki moved his hands to Thor’s hips, steadying himself, but Thor didn’t move to raise his head.

“Loki, please…” Anything else Thor said was lost as Loki came, hard and shuddering, in a rush of red blindness and white noise. His long fingers left bloodless handprints on Thor’s skin and bleeding crescents on his hips. Loki sprawled boneless over Thor’s back, spent, and trailed down Thor’s belly to find him still hard and shivering on the verge of release. It took only a few hard, rhythmic strokes and Thor spilled over his hand, collapsing on to the bed with Loki on top of him. Loki pulled free and rolled onto his back on the dry side of the bed. He was glad Thor wasn’t watching as it took him several tries to remove the condom with clumsy hands and drop it to the floor near the wall. Thor was on his side now, knees curled to his chest, his breathing evening out. Despite the still-bleeding scratches and the bruises blossoming on his neck and hips, he seemed to be falling asleep.

“Wake up,” Loki said, slapping the reddened handprint he’d left on Thor’s right hip. “Whores don’t sleep in my bed.” Thor started and sat up slowly, his back to Loki and his shoulders slumped in a hunch. He stood and headed to the bathroom, steps slow like he was in pain, his eyes fixed on the carpet.

“Where are you going?” Loki asked. He shut his heavy eyelids for a moment.

“You kicked me out. You’re done with me.” Silence hung in the air between them for a beat too long. Loki felt like they were both trying to avoid saying the obvious. He wanted Thor to stay, and Thor didn’t want to leave.

“We aren’t done. That wasn’t worth what I paid for you,” he said, and Thor’s posture sank even further. “But we can settle it if you split the coke with me.”

“The coke.”

“The cocaine, Thor. Your cocaine, remember? You sold me your virgin ass to buy it? Try to stay with me. Do a line with me and I’ll let you go.” Thor brushed his fingers over the collar at his neck, then looked at Loki with a smile.

“Deal,” he said. The confident, even arrogant man he suspected Thor was every other night of his life seemed to be rallying, ready to go one step further in this adventure. He went into the bathroom and returned toweling himself off. Loki slid off the foot of the bed and retrieved the baggie from the top of the dresser and the mirror and clean straws from the bottom of his suitcase. He poured it out, appreciating the fine grain of it, and used the same razor he’d given Thor earlier to chop two generous rails. Thor took the straw he offered him but he made no motion to use it. He was waiting, watching Loki. Loki shrugged and snorted his rail with the neat efficiency he used in everything else. He handed the mirror to Thor, the drug burning in his nose and sending sparks all trough his body. Thor hesitated a moment, then mimicked Loki with his own line. He failed, getting only a third of the way through before he stopped, eyes squeezed shut, but he didn’t lose any. Loki’s chuckling seemed to goad him, and he finished the rest, sloppy but effective.

“Good stuff,” Loki remarked. He’d been feeling sleepy and languid, but within minutes the high was singing through his veins, filling him with energy. He wanted to go for a run on the beach, get in a fight, and fuck Thor some more, all at the same time.

Thor tackled him onto the bed, straddling his lap up against the headboard and kissing him so hard he scraped his lip on his teeth and tasted blood. Clearly they were on the same wavelength. Loki buried his fingers in Thor’s damp hair and arched into him, raking his nails once more down his back. Loki knew no amount of coke could make it possible to go again so soon, but Thor seemed determined to try, grinding against Loki’s stomach and panting. Loki pushed back, biting Thor’s lower lip and enjoying the tense, combative feeling of their bodies grappling.

Loki wasn’t sure how much time had gone by when he realized something was wrong. His high had peaked with an edgy, restless discomfort. He shoved Thor away and Thor let him up, half sitting against the headboard and staring at the ceiling. Loki paced, hot and itchy, like his skin didn’t fit. It must have been laced with something, he thought. X or speed from the feel of it.

“That is such tourist bullshit,” he said out loud. “Where’s the rest of your stash?”

“The what?”

“The rest of your coke, genius. There’s a certain asshole I want to cram it up if I ever see him again.”

“That’s all there was.” Thor was still breathing hard, eyes closed.

“Thor. That was a hundred and fifty dollars worth of coke. Maybe two even for someone with more money than sense. He said you owed him over a thousand.”

“That’s all,” he repeated.

“You fucking idiot. Didn’t you check?”

“I didn’t…really care.” Thor said something else, but Loki couldn’t make it out as tremors shook Thor’s body.

“Are you all right?” Loki asked, but he suspected he knew the answer.

“I’m fine,” Thor rattled out. “Chest hurts is all.” Loki stopped pacing and went to the bed. Thor convulsed and Loki stroked his burning face, felt the the pulse in his neck slamming like a caged animal against his fingers. Loki walked back to the mirror and stood, eyes closed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Am I OK?” Thor whispered behind him.

“You’re dying, you moron.”

“Oh,” Thor said. He processed this for a moment and Loki thought he’d passed out. “Maybe I should put my pants back on,” he finished, barely audible.

“An excellent idea.” Loki couldn’t help but laugh, giddy with the cresting high and the absurdity of his situation. He brought Thor’s jeans from the bathroom and began dressing himself quickly, looking for something anonymous. “I knew you were too good to be true,” he told Thor, turning his sweatshirt inside out to hide the Yale logo. “Of course I buy a coke whore who has neither whored nor done coke.” Thor sat up, still wracked with tremors. He shook his head and blood poured from his nose, leaving dark drops on his bare chest. He reached for his pants and promptly lost consciousness. Loki sighed at his negative progress. He snapped up his phone and thumbed the speed dial for his driver, realizing he didn’t even know the man’s name.

“I need you,” he said as soon as the phone picked up. “Come up to my room.” He ended the call just as abruptly and spent the next few minutes wrestling Thor into his pants until he heard a knock on the door. “Help me with him,” he told the driver, grateful that his father always sent him with someone burly and discreet to keep him safe.

“Did you kill a hooker?” he asked Loki. He hesitated on the threshold.

“He isn’t fucking dead yet, and if he were it would be his own fucking fault. Put him in the car.”

“OK, but dumping a body is extra.”

“He’s going to the emergency room,” Loki said through gritted teeth. The driver shrugged like he didn't care if it was the ER or a remote canal and scooped Thor into a fireman’s carry. Thor shook violently and his head lolled, dribbling blood onto the lapel of the driver’s rumpled suit. Loki put the hood of his wrong side out sweatshirt up and donned his darkest sunglasses before following them down the hallway. The took the back elevator down into the parking deck and between them got Thor’s impossibly tall, broad body into the back seat. As the driver pulled out into the street, Loki found a box of tissues and tried to wipe the blood off Thor’s face. He held Thor’s head on his lap, stroking his golden hair, now dried into curls, and his smooth, flushed cheeks.

“You’re the worst hooker I’ve ever seen,” he told him gently. “What are you even doing here?” Thor, of course, said nothing, only moaned and twitched. He soon saw the hospital looming above them in the night, the ER entrance glowing like a lighthouse, and Loki felt a pressure lift from his chest. It was probably the coke wearing off, he thought. He wanted to write a note, ‘My name is Thor and I can’t hold my cocaine. Please save my stupid life.’, and sort of roll Thor at the sliding doors, but he didn’t. He struggled to pull him out of the car without bouncing his pretty face off the curb and staggered under his awkward dead weight toward the triage area.

People came to help him, hands taking Thor away, and for an irrational second he wanted to hold on to him, stay and see what happened, but he let go. They had so many questions, but Loki had few answers. “Cocaine mixed with something. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know,” he kept saying, like a stupid parrot. He knew he must look shady as hell, wearing shades and a sweatshirt in the hot tropical night. Finally, when he felt the air conditioned breeze from inside the building, he darted away, retreating to the waiting car.

“Go,” he said, ducking into the foreign territory of the front seat.

“Don’t tell my father about this,” he told him when they returned to the hotel.

“That’s a nice watch,” the driver said.

 

The next morning, or rather later that same morning, he set off the metal detector at the airport. Sweaty, his head aching and his throat dry, Loki wanted nothing more than to sink into first class with a cold bottle of water and a pillow. He fished into his pocket and pulled out the little steel key to Thor’s collar. He dropped it in the tray to retrieve on the other side, a tight, private smile creeping across his face.


	2. December 21, Aspen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

“Odin and I go back a long way.” Laufey kept up conversation with his eldest son even as he drove them, skidding, up the sidewinding mountain road. Loki was usually fearless but the dark void beyond the puddle of light from their headlamps filled him with anxiety. He couldn’t even tell if it was trees or a yawning precipice on the other side of the flimsy, often absent guardrail. “We were great friends in school.” By which Loki knew his father meant that he and Odin loathed each other above all things and beyond all reason. “You remember what we are doing here?”

“Of course, father. We’ve come out to this humble ski lodge to enjoy holiday cheer with our business associates.” ASGARD’s holiday party, held each year on the winter solstice, lived in legend, in awe-struck whispers around their business world. Laufey had turned down their invitation many times, but this year, he had an angle.

“And?”

“And to see if they’ve left anything worth knowing lying around.” Swirls of white snowflakes drifted, glittering, in their high beams. It had been barely above freezing when their flight touched down, late, in Denver that afternoon. Loki suppressed a shiver as the frigid air seeped into his too-thin jacket. He tried to adjust the heat vents without his father noticing.

“Exactly. I want you to find Odin’s son, see if you can get close. Odin’s been on for years about what a perfect paragon the boy is, a real predator like his old man. Apparently he can conquer women, a rugby game, and an aggressive takeover in the same afternoon. Personally I think he’s been talking him up. No one is as much of a bloodsucking bastard as Odin,” his father said as though he did not, himself, possess the soul of a lamprey, “But he’d like us to think he’s got a hungry young clone of himself ready to take over.”

“You don’t buy it.” Loki had grown quite good at appearing to give his father his full attention, a necessary survival skill in their household. He knew his father wouldn’t come out and say “fuck Odin’s golden son”. They did not discuss Loki’s proclivities anymore than they did Laufey’s. But it would be far from the most distasteful thing he’d ever done for the good of the family business. His ears were tuned to his father, but he watched the road for black ice.

“No. My intel says the boy is the weak link. Odin is the real deal; his son is just a pretender. I’ve heard rumors that he got into some sort of trouble over the summer, but the old man hushed it up and screwed the lid on tight. Get me something, or at least get close to him so we can use him to our advantage later.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good boy,” Laufey smiled and stroked Loki’s immaculate dark hair with possessive affection. Loki kept his eyes on the road, as though his attention would steer them. “I’ve got the wife,” he continued. “She must be bored to distraction being his trophy now that the youngest is off to art school. I hear he wants to teach unprivileged youth,” Laufey sneered.

Loki’s stomach lurched as they took one last bend with unsafe haste and Odin’s ski lodge came into view. It was a mansion, at the peak of a pristine Aspen slope, and light blazed out from all its many windows onto an expanse of dazzling white, marred only by the neatly shoveled drive. A ski lift went from the enormous house to a smaller building higher up; the actual ski lodge by the looks of things. Snow was falling steadily now; they had been wise to bring their luggage up here, as they would be staying the night.

Despite the freezing wind, Laufey got out of the car and sauntered over to the house. Loki matched him, not showing at all how the cold stripped him bare and left his ears aching. Servants ushered them inside and a wall of warmth folded over him. Candles lit the house and fires crackled in every room. Holly and evergreen and strings of bright lights decked the wooden beams of the ceiling and the heavy, comfortable furniture. Loki smelled beeswax and woodsmoke and pine mixed with the ghost of a wintery draft from the door.  
His father moved like a panther through the rooms, stopping for a small plate of roasted meat from the buffet, and settled in with a group of Odin’s military contractors. Loki trailed after him and his father gave him a quick introduction, but Laufey’s flinty eyes told him to find prey of his own. He moved on, nodding politely to those who met his eye, but he avoided becoming entangled in discussions with anyone old enough to be his parent. A servant offered him a drink, and he chose the cranberry martini with iridescent sugar sparkling on the rim over the heavy egg nog or champagne glinting with tiny gold shavings. It was still disgustingly festive, but at least it wasn’t too sweet.

He was frowning at his drink when he wandered into the game room to the sound of younger people laughing. He looked up and there, across the room full of pool and card tables, was Thor. He had a large window at his back, framing him with moonlit falling snow. He’d kept the clean shaven face, but otherwise he didn’t look much like he had the last time Loki saw him. He had on tailored slacks and a soft, tight cashmere sweater of holly berry red, plus a watch that cost as much as a car, but more than his wardrobe his whole demeanor seemed different. He stood confident and relaxed, a man who knew his place was right here, at the top, and the men and women around him all deferred to him. A pretty, athletic brunette stood next to him, pointing up at the mistletoe with a smirk. She latched on to a heavy platinum chain around his neck and pulled it out of his sweater. She tugged it playfully and he leaned down to kiss her, the fall of his golden hair hiding their lips. Loki felt a rush of resentful hatred for the girl. He noticed three things on Thor’s chain. One was an antique gold class ring with a gaudy crimson stone, and one was a stylized Nordic hammer, ASGARD’s logo. The last, incongruous to say the least, was a very familiar little steel padlock.

Thor looked up and caught sight of Loki. The blood drained from his face and the confidence fled his eyes, leaving them fearful, even pleading. No one else had noticed anything yet, but they would soon enough.

Laufey would have been thrilled, had Loki any intention of telling him. He found he had other plans. With a quick bit of sleight of hand, he showed Thor, and Thor alone, a fifty dollar bill, then palmed it into his sleeve. He could see the shame in Thor mixed with his relief as he nodded, barely, yes. Loki slipped back into the hallway and waited for his favorite whore to follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: Loki should have called 911. Don't use drugs, kids.


End file.
